Regular snowshoes are difficult to use as skis because they are inherently built for traction on snow and as such they will not slide on snow easily as is expected from skis. While climbing is easier with snowshoes, moving along flat ground or downhill is only about as efficient as walking uphill.
Skis, on the other hand, have the opposite characteristics: they slide well which facilitates some displacements on flat ground and which makes sliding downhill easier in some circumstances also such as in man-made ski trails, but provide little traction such that climbing hills is more difficult. However, even when moving downhill, such as in off-trail situations, sliding is sometimes not desirable especially on steep slopes where a controlled descent is desired.
It is known to provide skins for skis, for example made of seal skins, with the naturally inclined fur of the skin being oriented towards the rear of the ski such that it will not hinder forward sliding movement of the ski bottom surface on the snow, but will provide traction during backward movement of the ski along the snow, consequently providing traction for forward movement on ground of any inclination, but being mostly useful when climbing; while not hindering forward movement and sliding downhill. However such skins are not adapted for providing traction for enhanced control during downhill movement, notably. Control during downhill movement with skis is usually obtained by means of the longitudinal steel edges that are provided on each side of the skis through controlled lateral deportation of the skis.
Hybrid snowshoe-skis are known that allow both skiing and walking as snowshoes. However, known hybrid snowshoe-skis either slide too much if they are closer to skis in their parameters, or provide too much traction if they are closer to snowshoes in their parameters.
The problem is ultimately that the terrain type that is being travelled over will vary, from uphill to downhill to flat ground, from steep to mild slopes, from one type of snow to another, from open ground to clustered forests, and so on. One type of ski, snowshoe or snowshoe-ski might be adapted for or advantageously used in one terrain type, but it will inevitably fall short of being efficient or pleasant on another terrain type. Even using skins such as seal skins described above does not offer the thusly equipped skis with enough versatility to adapt to the vast diversity of winter terrain that can be encountered.